Tenchi Muyo: Son of Earth and Jurai
by Tscorpio1701
Summary: After 25 years Tenchi Masaki is finally coming home, but home will be anything but peaceful.
1. Prologue

**Tenchi Muyo, Son of Earth and Jurai.**

**Prologue.**

In the darkness between star systems a lone vessel stood silently in space. It was over two kilometres long and looked much like a brick crossed with a squid and had four petal-like panels extended from the rear engineering section. Great arcs of electricity danced along the inner surface of the petals, which bathed the vessel in an almost ethereal electric blue glow and brightened the constantly shifting dark blue-grey organic armour.

Deep within the centre of the ship sat two individuals. One had the appearance of a twenty five year old man in a blue Earth Force Commodore's duty uniform, and was sitting in the captain's chair, the other was a young woman, also in her mid twenties, was sitting at a side console usually assigned to the ship's xo, and instead of a uniform she wore a form fitting pair of black leather pants and a leather jacket over a dark purple t-shirt with a pair of PPGs strapped to her thighs and had a stylized badge with the Greek letter psi pinned just above her left breast.

They both heard the soft voice of the ship's personality in the back of their heads, "It is time, the circle closes."

"Do you always have to say that? Hearing it from a Vorlon is irritating enough," protested the commodore.

"You seem to forget who and what I am," the voice teasingly retorted.

He sighed. "Well, It is too easy to forget, most of the time."

"If you say so..."

He sighed and focused his glance onto the large view screen in the front of the Command Centre. "It's still not too late for the two of you to change you minds, you don't need to follow me home."

The lady could only smirk at the attempt of chivalry by the man she had known for the past five years. "And you know that the both of us would never feel complete if you left us behind. Face it Tenchi Masaki, you are permanently stuck with us."

"Well Motoko, at least I can say that I gave you the choice," said Tenchi with resignation. _Everywhere I go I always end up with one more young woman coming home with me._

"All capacitors are charged," the voice said again, this time through the speakers of the mostly empty Command Centre. "Ready for dimensional jump."

"Execute jump," he said and leaned back in his seat. This would bring him back home. Hopefully.

"Executing Dimensional Jump Sequence."

Deep within the bowls of the majestic ship the large capacitors released their charge, focused it through several transformers and into the Jump Engine. Minute amounts of artificial Quantium 40 mixed with a rare substance called Tyrelium was injected into the main chamber of the Engine and the charge of the capacitors reached the chamber. The large amounts of energy were transformed yet again and released through the modified Jump Engine emitters, which tore at the wall that separated normal space, hyper space and the inter universal medium, called Third Space.

A dark blue vortex opened directly in front of the majestic ship and it accelerated into it. It seemed to get longer and then disappeared inside it. With a flash of light the vortex closed.

Several thousand kilometres away a small vorlon bioship dropped its cloak and swung around. Its passenger looked at the spot where the other ship just disappeared.

"Your circle here in this universe has ended, but another has just begun."

The vorlon seemed to sigh as he turned around and looked at the hologram showing a growing jump point.

"I wish you luck, Tenchi Masaki."

At that moment a dark skinned man appeared beside the Kosh.

"Yes, he will need all the luck he can get. Now we can't help him, can we Kosh."

"No."

With that the Vorlon bioship disappeared inside the jump point.

* * *

Authors notes.

I've been hit with a sudden bout of writers block on a number of stories lately, and so I have decided to take on a new project to get my creative juices flowing again. I have taken inspiration from Warringer's Back Home story, I have already asked his permission from the author to use the plot. Now this is going to be slightly different to Back Home, this is not a direct copy, though the early chapters will certainly be similar.

I hope everyone will enjoy this and hopefully won't come tearing up my driveway with pitchforks and torches.


	2. Ch1, The Journey Home

**Tenchi Muyo: Son of Earth and Jurai **

**CH#1 The Journey Home**

As the Dark Knight travelled through the multi-dimensional vortex its grey and blue organic form stretched and contracted, and both of the current occupants inside, as well as the ship, felt the same feeling of being stretched and contracted as they travelled through various different dimensions. The sensations were almost enough for them both to get sick, but they managed to keep their lunches down for the entire trip. Suddenly with a small flash they spotted the vast expanse of normal space ahead.

_Thank Kami its almost over,_ Tenchi jubilantly thought, as he fought to keep his lunch down and decided to just keep his mouth shut. Both his companions felt the same way, with both DK, the ship's intelligence, and Motoko mentally retorting, _You are so going to pay us back after this_, and both sent images of what they wanted him to do to them in their little private mental cyberspace, which made Tenchi both excited and genuinely terrified.

With an almost lethargic ease the feeling of being stretched and squished subsided and all three of them got back to normal. Tenchi took a deep breath to settle his still queasy stomach and leaned back into his command chair. "Damage report?" he requested as soon as he made sure that he wasn't going to lose his lunch.

"We have a green light across the board, no damage, except that we seem to have used up the Tyrellium in the jump. Even if we wanted to return to my former universe we wouldn't be able to until we find another source of Tyrellium," reported Motoko.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't feel like returning to that universe anytime soon."

"Uh Tenchi, you may want to reconsider that," said DK. "On screen!"

The forward view screen came to life and zoomed in on some bright flashing lights, which quickly resolved onto a space station and three ships that were attacking it. The space station looked more like a large collection of old ship hulls that seemed to have been haphazardly welded and bolted together. Most of these ship hulls looked like they were ready to fall apart and more than one was pockmarked with craters from micrometeorite impacts, carbon scoring from old weapons impacts, and simple space dust.

The three attacking ships however were each almost a kilometre wide discus shape with a parabolic indentation with a tower sticking out from the middle of it, which Tenchi identified as the bow, and three large ion-plasma engines going aft. They had multiple weapons turrets along the edge of the discus trench, along with more turrets arrayed in a pair of concentric rings above and below the trench, and a pair of large bore guns, which according to the sensor information were each ten metres in diameter, mounted into the bow.

"Got any details on those ships?"

"They appear to be armed with a mixture of laser and particle cannons, plasma cannons and what looks to be a pair of large bore rail guns mounted spinally. The space station is holding its own, but its shield seems to be on the verge of collapse," reported DK.

"Can you access both sides computer systems?"

"Stand by," said DK as she began the act of breaking into both sides computer systems. They were close enough now that she could tap into the wireless network of the space station, but the attacking ships networks proved to be harder, which forced her to use a brute force approach through their communications system and copied everything inside their computers. She quickly found the ships orders and became incensed.

"It seems that this race, called the doranians, sent these ships here to destroy this space station for harbouring twenty dissident families. The station is called Novak Station and is basically a free port in this neck of the galaxy and has currently a civilian population of nearly twenty thousand."

For Tenchi this was a no brainer. "Change course to intercept the doranian warships and begin powering all weapons, go one hundred percent on all reactors," Tenchi ordered.

With that order the _Dark Knight_ surged forward while powering up all of her weapons systems, and DK was almost giddy with excitement.

* * *

**Novak Station's Command Centre.**

In the station's command centre the director of Novak Station was currently coordinating the defence of the station. Surprisingly enough the director was a human, Alistair Baker, who had twenty years previously been abducted by a race known throughout the galaxy as one of the worst examples of capitalists, scavengers and to him personally the most sadistic scientists, the vree.

The doranians in their discus shaped cruisers had been attacking the station for the last three days, which was slowly but steadily destroying the station's shield generator. It was originally made by a low level Quantum II civilization to protect a large and slow bulk freighter from raider attacks. However the doranian cruiser, the main frontline warship for the Doranian Protectorate, was one of the most advanced and powerful warships a Quantum I civilization could build without reaching Quantum II level.

As another barrage of rounds from the cruisers powerful spinal mounted railguns hit, Director Baker took out a small picture he kept in his chest pocket, the last picture he had of him and his wife and daughter on a beach back on Earth, somewhere in California he thought. With that picture came some very painful memories of what happened. They had been taken in the middle of the night and the vree began their experiments. All they said was that they were researching human emotions, and soon all three had been drive to near madness with the images they constantly showed and the physical torture, which was enough to cause his wife to have heart failure, and his daughter died from shock and trauma, but before they could kill him he had been saved by the Galaxy Police, and the vree scientists were tried and executed, then he was sent to some back water planet to live out his life in some sort of peace.

He wasn't satisfied with that, so for the next decade he tried to get back to Earth, but for all his hard work all that had gotten him was this space station, only four light years from Earth and with no way to get there, and then he somehow became Director of this station, and now his life was about to end because of some blood thirsty oversized cats who couldn't just let people live out their lives in peace. He stroked the picture of his wife and daughter and quietly whispered, "Don't worry, I'll be joining you soon," then put it back into his pocket and refocused his attention back to the oval view screen.

"Director, another ship is approaching fast," reported one of the Command Centre techs, an alien with a head of a mollusc and the body of a squid, which Director Baker like to call Scotty, due to its skill as a tech, and because he could make the impossible possible with limited equipment and technology, and unlike many of the residents it hadn't broken down in terror by the doranians near constant siege. "Increasing magnification."

The large overhead view screen quickly changed views from the scary form of the three doranian cruisers to the oddly designed ship that was rapidly closing in. A sensor readout of the new arrival overlaid itself over the visage of the approaching ship. It was just over two kilometres long, and seemed an odd cross of a brick and a squid. The brick parts looked like something a human would design, but the four tentacles that grew out from the bow and the four open petals to the rear, near the main engines, were definitely alien in origin. He quickly noticed some script but couldn't quite make it out.

"Increase magnification of grid D7," the Director ordered, and it promptly zoomed in on the ship's name. His eyes nearly bugged out of his sockets when he saw no alien script, but human Latin letters illuminated in bright flood lights.

_Dark Knight_.

_What the hell? Humanity can't have advanced this far in such a short time, nobody on Earth could have built a ship like that,_ the Director thought furiously.

"Director, the alien vessel is broadcasting a hail on an open channel to the doranian cruisers," reported one of the other alien technicians in the command centre, a five foot tall squirrel-like alien wearing only his fur and a utility belt around his waist.

"Patch them in," the Director ordered immediately.

Seconds later the image of man of either Japanese or Juraian descent and looked to be in his forties, four hundreds with a well trimmed beard, came upon the screen. _"This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki of the Earth Alliance battleship _Dark Knight_ to attacking ships, you will stand down and leave this system at once. If you do not withdraw I will be forced to engage you."_ The Commodore's voice was of someone who knew how to hold onto the reins of command well, and was a man who seemed used to getting his way.

The screen split and showed the frowning face of the doranian commander. The doranian male had brown coloured face and the scar that went through his right eye gave him the appearance of an old and accomplished warrior.

_"We will do as we please, Juraian."_

Baker could see a slight twitch on the face of Commodore Masaki as he was called a Juraian.

_"It is our right to attack and destroy that station for hiding traitors to the Protectorate! And I will destroy you if you chose to side with them,"_ he said with venom.

Baker watched Commodore Masaki's face grow darker.

_"So be it,"_ said Masaki with a tone of finality and the connection was cut.

Soon after the view screen changed to a view of the two sides. The insides of the petals on the engineering section of the _Dark Knight_ began to glow, as if gathering energy from space itself. A pair of cannons mounted on the bow began to glow blood red as arcs of blue electricity crisscrossed in between the four tentacle-like structures that seemed to have been grown out from the bow. There was also a number of smaller double pronged turrets that also had powerful electric arcs similar to the primary weapon, though much smaller in scale. At roughly amidships Director Baker could also see a pair of what he identified as missile pods, though their outer doors appeared closed for the moment.

The first to open fire were the doranian cruisers with a quick barrage of laser and particle beam fire. With the nimbleness of a ship an eighth its size the _Dark Knight_ dodged with a sharp manoeuvre, and luckily the initial long range barrage missed entirely, some of it by several kilometres at least.

"That ship's ECM must be seriously mucking up the doranian sensors," the Director mused as he watched the doranian cruisers go all out. One of them did a random swipe with a couple of particle beam cannons and both managed to intersect with the _Dark Knight_. One of them seemed to bend away, as if a strong gravity well had managed to curve the beam away from the ship's armour, while the other didn't and managed to deal a glancing blow to the forward hull.

Director Baker was astonished at what he saw. A glancing blow from one of those cannons had turned the station's last defending corvette into a floating scrap heap, and all this did was scratch the paint job and boil off several layers of armour, though from the look of it there were no violent decompressions, as was usually the case of warships, most having little to almost no armour at all. He couldn't help but wonder how thick that ship's armour was.

Less than a second after the last beam connected a great beam of blue lightning lanced out from the centre of the crossed arcs and hit the lead cruiser. As a testament to its builders its shields held for a second, but through sheer brute force the lance of energy penetrated the shields and proceeded to vaporize everything in its path. The beam cored the cruiser from bow to stern and succeeded in splitting it in two, then consumed itself secondary explosions.

The remaining pair of cruisers raced forward to close the distance while opening up with everything they had. In response the _Dark Knight's_ interceptors began to systematically knock down enemy weapons pulse cannon fire and six Light Hawk Wings sprung forth to stop the laser and particle beam fire. Both cruisers closed in to the sides of _Dark Knight_ in an attempt to force them to split their fire. In response the _Dark Knight_ turned hard to port and unleashed its own main particle beam cannons. Two blood red beams of particles accelerated to near light speed impacted the cruiser that was angling to come alongside the _Dark Knight's_ port side was hit with both particle beams and quickly collapsed with the force of several dozen giga-tonnes of energy slamming into it and its entire port side got raked with the particle beams, which led to the entire portside of the cruiser's armour to melt away and buckle the inner hull, causing a string of violent decompressions, spilling forth atmosphere, equipment and bodies of crewmembers.

To finish it off one of the sixteen inch forward rail gun turrets put half a dozen APHE (Armour Piercing High Explosive) rounds through the hull which detonated within the engineering spaces, and detonated the ship's own reactors and fuel supply and went up like a huge fireworks display.

The third and last cruiser attempted to exploit the _Dark Knight's _preoccupation with destroying its second target and tried to attack it from behind. The cruiser fired off six rounds from its own spinal mounted railguns, but each one was intercepted by streams of plasma bolts form their targets point defence guns. With main engines and RCS thrusters firing the Dark Knight continued its portside turn and lined up for a full broadside counter attack with its secondary batteries. Before the last doranian cruiser could react several of the smaller double pronged weapons turrets opened fire with powerful blue beams of destructive power and quickly demolished the cruiser's shields, then continued to hammer the cruiser's hull as it desperately tried to fight back, though its resistance dropped off as the beams either destroyed weapons mounts or severed power conduits.

By chance a few white particle beams managed to score a few hits to the _Dark Knight's_ armour, but the damage was negligible, and served only to intensify the battleship's attack, and seconds later one of the cruiser's reactors went critical and destroyed the ship in a titanic explosion.

Director Baker could only sigh in relief as he released a breath he didn't know he had been holding in, and was astonished to find the engagement had only lasted a few minutes, and had ended the three day long siege.

"Communications, open up a channel to _Dark Knight_," he requested.

"Director, they are already hailing us," said the communications technician.

"On screen," responded the Director as he was quite eager to express his gratitude to Commodore Masaki.

Once again the Commodore's visage was on screen and this time his eyes seemed to have tired, but hard as diamonds look to them

"Commodore Masaki, on behalf of Novak Station and its inhabitants I thank you, and I offer you any assistance you may need to make repairs," said the Director with a short bow.

_"You're welcome, and thank you for the offer, but your assistance is not required at this time. Would you like to come aboard?"_ the Commodore offered. _You may bring aboard as many as three body guards, no more!"_ he added.

"Very well, I accept those terms," said Director Baker in response and with a short bow of the head the com line was cut.

"I believe that I should join you, Director Baker," said a rather aristocratic voice behind the Director, one Director Baker had relied upon for advice ever since he had taken the position he currently held.

"I would appreciate your company, as well as your bodyguards presence, citizen G'Kar," said Baker as he and G'Kar, along with a couple of Narn bodyguards, headed down to one of the stations landing bays and took a shuttle out to their saviour.

It was a short trip, but the view was quite telling. As they approached in one of the few shuttles remaining, a small box-like thing with a couple of sub-light thrusters and a stout nose, Director Baker could see the damage that had been inflicted upon the ship. There were a number of burn marks, but they appeared to be healing, like it was a living organism. Only the Royal Trees of Jurai had that kind of armour tech, and the minbari were close to cracking that technology, both were Quantum III level civilizations. The Light Hawk Wings, to the Director's mind, pretty much confirmed this as a juraian ship, but its form was anything but graceful, more like an oversized brick with big engines and guns.

As they approached the ship's docking bay the shuttle's navigational computer was taken control of. One of the narns almost took manual control, but G'Kar stopped him, and reminded his younger comrade that such things were standard procedure in the Narn Fleet as well. They were guided in with incredible precision and the Director could also see a number of smaller secondary craft, including a number a very powerful looking x shaped craft, and soon enough they were guided to a landing pad, and the large air tight docking bay doors sealed behind them.

They waited with baited breath as the hangar bay had breathable atmosphere pumped in again, and soon enough the atmospheric warning lights turned off, signalling that the atmosphere outside was safe. The first out of the shuttle were the two narn bodyguards, armed with fist sized PPG handguns, and heavier rifles slung behind their backs, then behind them the Director and G'Kar came out of the shuttle and took a look around, seeing nobody there to greet them.

Baker took a look at the gun-metal-grey deck plating and saw numerous yellow-and-black warning lines on the deck, much like on a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, and as he took a closer look around the hangar it was obvious to him that this ship had been designed by Earth born human engineers, though the organic components were definitely alien in origin.

Taking a chance the Director called out in his native tongue, English, "Hello, is anyone here?"

As if in answer to his call a pressure door opened up and a woman came walking into the hangar with an air of confidence, as if she owned the ship and the Commodore was just borrowing it.

In accented Intercosmo, which was similar to Japanese, she introduced herself, "Welcome aboard the Dark Knight gentlemen. I am Motoko Kusanagi, the xo of this ship." Her voice was sensual, yet also carried a hint of danger as well. Please come with me, the Commodore is waiting." She swiftly turned on her heel and the four guests followed after her like a line of ducklings.

As they walked along the corridors and took a lift up a couple of decks Director Baker saw more that made him absolutely sure that this ship had been originally built by Earth human hands, with small screens and controls at regular intervals and all the signs and insignia were all in English. He could also swear that someone he couldn't see was watching him, and as far as he could tell, apart from the xo and the Commodore, this ship seemed utterly deserted, which gave Baker the creeps, and the narns were as nervous as cats in a room full of rocking chairs, and were getting even more nervous as they went deeper into the ship.

* * *

**Centauri Prime, **

**Capital Planet of the Centauri Republic**

**Emperor's Throne Room**

Upon a golden throne with red vinyl-like coverings sat the Emperor of the Centauri Republic, basking in his absolute joy of having finally achieved the first part of his destiny, and like a young rascal he had one leg propped on top of one of the armrests, hardly a dignified posture for someone in his position, unlike his predecessor, Emperor Turhan, who had always been the image of regal centauri nobility, Emperor Cartagia was viewed by most as a young upstart that only gained his position because he was easy to influence, though to his enemies, both within and without the Centauri Republic he was considered a potentially dangerous mad man.

From a side entrance one of Cartagia's many minions came forward with a data crystal in hand. This minion was none other than Lord Refa, one of the nobles that had put him into power, and in turn gained a great deal of power and influence in the Centaurum, same thing as a senate, but instead of Senators it had the Heads of the Centauri Noble Houses.

"Emperor, I bring news from our spies. It was sent over a Silver Channel."

With a bored sigh the Emperor opened his eyes from his own personal daydreaming of godhood. "Don't tell me the juraians or the minbari are up to something again?" he asked wearily.

Lord Refa's right cheek twitched slightly at the young emperor's attitude, then remembered why he was here, and placed the data crystal he had in his hand into a data port. "This was recorded by one of our spies aboard Novak Station, a rather filthy place, but useful for gathering intelligence. You would be surprised by what sort of riffraff wash up there. We even found the last of the original Kha'Ri members, Citizen G'Kar. Our spy was actually tracking him when he recorded this," said Refa in as much a subservient tone as he possibly could make as the recording played.

It showed the siege and the battle that took place, the dramatic entrance of the _Dark Knight_, and its commander that claimed the ship was owned by something called the Earth Alliance.

"Do we have any intelligence about this Earth Alliance?" the emperor asked with a mad gleam in his eyes as he greedily drank in the sight of the ugly blue and grey battleship.

"There is no mention of any organization under the term Earth Alliance, but there is a planet in the Corian Expanse that is called Earth that is protected under the Juraian Protected Planets Treaty. It is a sub-Quantum Zero world that should not have been able to build such a ship, and since the ship appears to be organic in nature we can assume that the juraians helped build that ship."

"Which automatically makes Earth fall out of the Treaty and is no longer protected," said the emperor gleefully. "Deploy a fleet to this Erp and secure the system. They can't have that many ships for just one planet. Take that ship, preferably intact. We must make it and its technology ours. It will elevate us to Quantum III level status for sure and we will finally be able to challenge the juraians and the minbari," he said gleefully, already dreaming mad daydreams of conquest.

"By your command, my Emperor," said Refa as he bowed respectfully and made his way to make his own plans, both with some 'special allies' and to gather his own house fleet to pick up the pieces.

TBC...


	3. Ch2, Return home

**Tenchi Muyo: Son of Earth and Jurai **

**CH#2, Return home.**

_**Dark Knight,**_** CIC**_**.**_

As Commodore Tenchi Masaki sat waiting for his guests he sat in his comfy command chair and gazed longingly at the image of Earth on the ship's main view-screen, which normally would show what was happening in front of the ship by default. It had been twenty five years since he had accidentally been sent to EA Earth by one of Washu's crazy inventions, the Extradim Teleporter 9000, which he had absentmindedly been leaning against when suddenly an electric current passed through him and the last thing he heard before he blacked out was a scream of "MIHOSHI."

The next thing he knew for certain was that he woke up in a hospital bed in Geneva near Earth-Dome, with two broken ribs, a nearly punctured lung and his right arm and leg broken in a number of places, indicative of a fall from a great height. The doctors thought it was a miracle that he survived. Since he had no ID, and him faking amnesia, they concluded that Tenchi was a member of one of the No-Tech communities that had sprung up around Geneva, and since most of them didn't have proper ID nor had their DNA registered Tenchi stuck with that story.

When the authorities offered to help him return he turned them down, claiming that he wanted to see the world, and that's what he did. He got a part time job at a local farm and did rather well for himself, especially with carrots. He spent the next three years working the farm and travelling around the world. However like all things, the good times came to an end. The Earth-Minbari War began all because some idiot ship captain opened fire on a minbari ship that was carrying the minbari leadership and killed one of them.

Tenchi got subsequently drafted and put into a Starfury and miraculously survived the war, all the way through the Battle of the Line. After the war he entered the Earth Force Academy, and eventually gained a command of his own, the _EAS Armstrong_, an old Nova class dreadnought. He had commanded that ship for only a year when President Clarke began his reign of terror. He had immediately thrown his lot in with the resistance, and fought in some of the most ferocious battles in the Shadow War, and had managed to get through with only minor damage.

The _Armstrong's_ end came when President Clarke's forces tried to ambush the Resistance Fleet, though she didn't go down without a fight. She had managed to take down two of President Clarke's advanced destroyers, but the faithful _Armstrong_ had as a result been reduced to a somewhat intact wreck, but luckily most of the crew managed to be evacuated, Tenchi himself being the last living survivor to get off, a testament to the design's toughness.

After the EA Civil War he got command of an Omega class destroyer, the _Charybdis_, but only a few years later, when he got promoted to Commodore, he took command of the Warlock class destroyer _Dark Knight_, one of the first to come off the construction lines after the Civil War, along with a small task force of five ships, a pair of Omegas and three Lupo class frigates.

This brought up more recent memories. His task force had been assigned the job of surveying a couple of old battle fields from the Shadow War by the EFNI, which felt more like grave robbing to Tenchi, but orders were orders and there might have been some interesting technology left over in the wreckage for Earth Force R&D to reverse engineer. They managed to collect number of samples, nothing really noteworthy, until they stumbled across a nearly intact vorlon fighter. They brought it onboard and isolated it in the main hangar. The scientists aboard were rearing to sink their teeth into it and begin working out its secrets, but as luck would have it they were called away to repel a Drakh attack on a nearby civilian mining station.

The vorlon bioship was left forgotten in the hangar and everyone's attention was focused on the battle ahead, so no one was watching over it when it began to extend a number of tentacle-like appendages and hooked them into the _Dark Knight's_ electrical grid through the lights. Sinuous tendrils of biological matter invaded and fed off through passive absorption and received just enough energy to begin the process of merging itself with its host. It wasn't until two days later that someone went into the hangar where the bioship was stored, and found it had merged with the walls of the hangar and had taken on a different colour. Instead of the original black and green colour scheme, it now had a blue-grey sheen to it, and the patterns in the armour changed and shifted like it was alive.

The night of the discovery Tenchi somehow bonded to the ship, possibly due to his juraian heritage, and over the next few weeks it continued to morph and change the ship, which included transforming some of the turrets into Quantum pulse/beam cannons, though for some unknown reason it left the railguns and interceptors alone. By the end of its transformation a new intelligence emerged and loudly proclaimed, "I am the _Dark Knight_, the new intelligence of this vessel and I hereby pledge myself as a protector of humanity."

During the course of several months the crew started to feel like they were living in a horror show, though to Tenchi the Dark Knight felt more like home than he had found in his near twenty year exile at that point. As Tenchi looked around the now empty command bridge he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that none of his original crew had been able to bond with his ship.

Six months after the vorlon bioship merged with _Dark Knight_ and developed its own personality, Commodore Tenchi Masaki's life took a sharp left turn when, during the heat of battle, DK tapped into Tenchi's ability to create light hawk wings to protect the ship from a Drakh destroyer that was on a kamikaze run towards her, and did it in full view of everyone, and the EFNI knew that the wings had never been recorded during the vorlons previous battles. To protect DK Tenchi was forced to drop his disguise and show that he hadn't aged physically more than a few years than his twenty years of service should have.

In the end it was the EFNI that forced him out of Earth Force, and he took the _Dark Knight_ with him. As he continued to look around the empty bridge he remembered his escape from EFNI custody, using _Dark Knigh_t to affect it. At that time all of the crew had fled her, and he and _Dark Knight _launched them themselves into the blackness of space, alone together they escaped the EFNI's own space forces. Luckily due to his own record of service, and having made a few powerful friends who knew his secret, most notably President Sheridan, he wasn't hunted down as a traitor, but he did become a hidden trump card for Earth Force and the Interstellar Alliance.

For the next three months they were alone, and even though their relationship together became close, they both still missed having the ship full of people, but no one wanted to serve aboard a living ship, at least not for long. Tenchi smiled as he remembered how Motoko Kusanagi came aboard his ship and breathed some much needed life back into both himself and DK.

Motoko was a telepath, a very strong P12, almost a P13, and one of the EFNI's Blue Berets, a unit of telepathic Special Forces operatives, separate from the Psi Corp and an eternal thorn in their side ever since the Psi Corp was founded. She was also a strong telekinetic and had a very subtle precognitive ability, though some scientists theorized that it was like telepathic radar, her mind interoperating the thoughts and emotions of everyone in the area as well as a hyper awareness of her surroundings, which gave her brain the information it needed to predict local future events. During the Telepath War the psi corps captured her and her team and put them through a series of inhuman experiments. All but Motoko had been turned into vegetables.

She was pushed to become a P16 and her precognitive abilities were increased, she could now predict events three minutes into the future, and they also tried to re-educate her to believe that 'The Corps is mother, the Corps is Father' crap that the Psi Corp had indoctrinated their people into believing. What the Psi Corp scientists didn't realize was that her mind was too strong for them to break.

She left them all with the worst living nightmares she could implant into their minds and managed to get to a Starfury and escaped the Psi Corp facility. She travelled as far as Babylon 5, but as soon as she got within eyeshot of the station she immediately sensed the almost quarter million minds of the residents and nearly went insane from the onslaught of so many minds constantly broadcasting. Luckily for her the _Dark Knight_ was there on a resupply run and picked her up. Sensing her plight DK bonded with her and acted as a buffer against the almost constant onslaught of thoughts that washed over her in populated areas, until she could rebuild her mental defences. However as a side effect she is now permanently linked with DK and Tenchi and has to stay within range of the _Dark Knight's_ telepathic range, otherwise after three weeks her mental barriers would start to crumble and she would lose her mind. At best she becomes a vegetable, at worst she becomes a homicidal maniac.

Tenchi then wondered how the girls back home were going to take his strange relationship with his ship and xo, and how long he had been away from them, which DK couldn't help but pick up.

_"You've been away from home for about a month, local time,"_ she said through their mental link.

_"A month?"_

_"Well, we are near Proxima, even if this system is slightly different from the system we know, but the distance between Proxima and Sol remain the same. I was able to receive a few news channels from Earth, CNN, NBC and the like. I had the dates of the time when the news was sent, so the rest was just a bit simple math."_

_"You're sure it has only been just a month since I left?"_ Tenchi asked.

_"Well, I could be off by a day or two. We could even be a hundred years too early or too late, but I can guarantee you that we are in the right universe."_

"If you are done remembering the past our guests will be arriving through the port entrance any second now," announced DK through the bridge's intercom speakers, and Tenchi turned his command chair away from said door. He always loved doing this. "You are such a drama king," said DK bemused.

* * *

Motoko smiled slightly as she pressed door control and waited for it to cycle open. Soon enough the sideways opening armoured door slid open and revealed a mostly empty bridge, except for a single person in the central command chair, which slowly turned around and revealed Tenchi in his forty year old persona. He always did this for anyone new coming aboard, he did so for her when she first came to the bridge and truly met him face to face for the first time, and seeing the looks on their guests faces as he revealed himself was always good fun.

Tenchi looked his four guests, a human and a trio of narns, one of them looked very familiar to him. Motoko gave Tenchi a secret little smile as she approached him and telepathically said, _"Yes, he really is G'Kar, or more precisely Citizen G'Kar, one of the former leaders of the Narn Regime."_

"Welcome aboard the _Dark Knight_, gentlemen, I trust you found the journey here relatively comfortable. Citizen G'Kar, it is a pleasure to meet you."

G'Kar looked startled for a second, and then became intensely curious."Have we met before?"

"After a fashion," answered Tenchi with a slight air of mystery.

At that moment DK initiated an active telepathic link between herself, Tenchi and Motoko. _"I took the liberty of copying the entire computer database of Novak Station. This is interesting. It seems that all the known races of our universe are present here and have more or less the same history. Just with the absence of the Vorlons and the Shadows. I can't find anything about them in the database. Though there are quite a few ships reported lost in the area of the Vorlon Empire and other areas I know belong to the Shadows."_

Motoko looked over Citizen G'Kar with interest, and wondered how he had ended up in this neck of the woods.

_"There was a war between the Narn Regime and the Centauri Republic twenty standard years ago. The Narn Regime's leadership, the Kha'Ri, were forced to flee when they lost. Novak Station must've been where G'Kar eventually washed up and has been trapped here ever since,"_ DK helpfully supplied before going to loudspeakers.

"I have completed the data download from Novak Station's databanks. I apologize for the intrusion, but it was necessary, Director Baker," she said to the bewilderment of their guests.

"Who..." started Director Baker as he looked to the closest speaker.

"I am the ship, not just the ship's main computer as you might think. It is also a great pleasure to see you again, Citizen G'Kar." Her voice practically conveyed her smile and all Tenchi could do was chuckle at the bewildered look of pain on G'Kar's face.

"You look like a man who requires an explanation," said Tenchi.

"An explanation would be most welcome," G'Kar responded in that same calm voice that Tenchi remembered so well.

"And what exactly is this Earth Alliance?" Director Baker asked a lot less calmly. "I know for a fact that Earth is nowhere near Quantum III level, so where did you get this ship?"

Tenchi sighed and bade the two leaders to take a couple of seats on the Command Bridge. "It all started roughly twenty five years ago from my perspective..." He launched himself into telling his tale, and left out a few key pieces of information, like the Shadow War and the Vorlons.

After he finished his tale Director Baker had an astonished look upon his face, while G'Kar had a thoughtful one.

"But you look so much like a juraian," said G'Kar. "In fact you have an uncanny resemblance to the current Emperor Azusa Masaki Jurai, not to mention the twitch you made when the doranian captain called you one."

Tenchi's eyes tightened for a second, not quite enough for Director Baker to notice, but to G'Kar it was as subtle as a PPG shot.

"I guess you didn't tell us everything," G'Kar mused to himself, grinning internally at the headache he had just avoided such a mystery would cause him.

At that Tenchi openly smiled. "You are just as perceptive as your dimensional counterpart, Citizen G'Kar."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"I meant it as such."

Before more could be said DK came with an alarming announcement. "Tenchi, I just completed my scan of the entire databases I got from the doranians and Novak Station. The doranian siege force here was only a small part of a larger fleet, which just so happens to be heading straight for Earth."

"I was about to tell you..." began Director Baker.

"Save it. I have a home-world to save. Motoko, escort our guests back to the shuttle bay. We'll depart for Earth as soon as they're away," said Tenchi shortly.

"I would like to stay aboard, if you would permit me? You are a very interesting person, and you still owe me that explanation," G'Kar requested.

"Fine, you can stay, just stay out of me and my ship's way, or you will find yourself introduced to the vacuum of space without a space suit."

G'Kar nodded in understanding and took a nearby seat, while his escort and Director Baker were quickly ushered back to their shuttle.

* * *

Less than three minutes later Director Baker was back aboard the shuttle and looked back as it rocketed out of the _Dark Knight's_ launch bay. Seconds after the human warship from another universe departed for its master and commander's home-world through an orange vortex, which puzzled the Director, since most ships that went into slipstream usually had a multicoloured aura just before they accelerate. This looked more like a wormhole, but figured, _Different universe, different rules._

For a moment he wondered why he didn't take the opportunity to go home and get off Novak Station, like G'Kar had, but then thought, _what's waiting for me back home? My family's long dead. I don't know if I'll be able to reintegrate back into human society, and I have a home here, as much as that cobbled together monstrosity can be a home. No, better for me to stay put I have friends here, besides, that ship was giving me the creeps._ He couldn't help but shudder at the feeling he had of being aboard a living ship, but still prayed that Commodore Masaki would get back home in time to save it.

* * *

G'Kar stood on the bridge of the Dark Knight and looked at the view screen in front of him. It showed the angry red swirls of a medium that was completely unknown to him. This was a totally different way of FTL travel than Quantum Slipstream, which had named the technology levels based on the energy bands of Slipstream. He turned around and looked at Tenchi.

"What was this called again?"

Tenchi sighed and stood up to his full height. He stretched a bit and let the bones in his neck crack as he moved his head. Motoko meanwhile had returned and taken a seat at what Tenchi had identified earlier as the tactical station

"This is called Hyperspace." With that he suddenly seemed to be 25 years younger and continued to stretch. "We access it with a Hyperspace Jump Engine that needs a substance called Quantium 40 to work properly."

He then turned to look back at G'Kar who was staring very intensely at him.

"Is something wrong?"

"I was right, you are a juraian," G'Kar said after a moment.

Tenchi shook his head.

"No, actually I am only a part juraian. My grandfather is Yosho."

G'Kar sat down on one of the empty chair behind the Navigation Console and sighed.

"I heard stories about Yosho, when I was on Jurai," he said with another sigh."That was just before the Centauri invaded Narn, and I was trapped on that station with no way of going home." He whirled around in the chair and faced the view screen again, seemingly mesmerized by the constantly shifting swirls of energy, then tore himself away to again face Tenchi.

"He was Emperor Azusa's son, wasn't he?" he asked curiously.

"Yes, he is," said Tenchi fondly.

"He is still alive?" G'Kar asked surprised.

"Yes, he's my grandfather."

"It is said that he followed this space pirate, I think Ryoko was her name, after she laid waste to Jurai. That ship of hers is said to be of Quantum IV level. Only the Old Ones and the First Ones are said to have such technology. Even the Juraians and the Minbari are only at Quantum III level."

He turned back to Tenchi. "He managed to defeat her, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

"Did he kill her?"

Tenchi shook his head. "No, she was imprisoned by him in a cave."

G'Kar shook his head with a slight smile on his face. "Sounds like he is how he was said to be. No wonder his parents miss him and want him back on Jurai."

"We have reached the Sol System," DK announced. "We can jump back to Normal space anytime. Where do you want me to open a jump point?"

Tenchi scratched his chin in thought for a moment. "Open a jump point behind Luna, and set us up for a slingshot manoeuvre. I don't want them to see us coming until we're right on top of them."

"Roger that, jump engines online, standing by for your command."

Tenchi felt a rush of excitement, both at seeing his true home again, and the adrenaline rush of a combat jump.

"Jump!"

* * *

**Washington DC**

**The White House, Secure Bunker**

The atmosphere of the bunker was sombre. The question of 'Are we alone' had been answered in the most terrifying of ways. Three hours previously twelve unidentified flying objects had been detected entering orbit, in formation. Subsequent investigations later by the Hubble space telescope and other land based observatories had confirmed these to be flying saucers and for a brief moment in time, lasting a couple of hours, there had been both celebrations and cautious optimism.

After those first two hours the aliens had broadcasted on all communications bands with a highly amplified signal that reached anybody with a radio receiver and a video signal that was rebroadcasted on every national TV channel, and delivered a message in a language oddly similar to Japanese, but different enough to make translation extremely difficult, and then there was a strange ticking sound that came after that stopped exactly one hour after the aliens message ended. On the tenth of August 2001 at ten fifteen AM DC time twelve major cities around the world were rocked by horrific explosions, which later were confirmed to be the result of massive chunks of iron impacting the ground.

President Jack Ryan had his face in his hands as he took a moment to absorb what had just happened in the past hour, having seen a massive hole smashed right through the roof and out the side of the South Tower of the World Trade Centre in New York. Almost immediately every nation capable of reaching space had launched nuclear missiles in retaliation. None of them had reached their targets, and the aliens continued to randomly strike major metropolitan areas. All of the President's advisors and the Joint Chiefs were gathered but none of them had any idea if there was any way for them to combat this enemy.

"Well, now we know exactly what they use for orbital bombardment," said the president's head scientific advisor.

"And what exactly would that be?" one of the Joint Chief's asked bitterly.

"Kinetic strikes," the advisor said succinctly. "Basically they are throwing rocks at us."

"I would have thought that an advanced interstellar race would have used something like a directed energy weapon or possibly something similar to a nuke," said the Air Force General.

"A kinetic strike is by far more effective than any directed energy weapon or nuke, since even a relatively small rock would impact with the equivalent force of a tactical nuclear weapon if launched from a high enough altitude, plus you wouldn't have to deal with the nuclear fallout that would in effect would poison the world you were trying to conquer. They are also cost effective, since in space you would only have to go to the nearest asteroid field to pick up some new rocks," the scientific advisor explained.

The situation in the bunker degenerated into a general bickering as the advisor finished explaining, with the generals and admirals angry at the politicians for cancelling a number of programs in the early nineties that might have come in handy, and the politicians trying to find some way to profit from this or survive with their careers intact. President Ryan was not in the mood for this bickering and was about to take the reins when an aide came running in.

"Sir, NORAD just reported an unidentified flying object has launched from Japan and is ascending into orbit," the aide reported, and suddenly nervous as every pair of eyes in the room focused on him.

* * *

**Galaxy Police patrol ship GPS Yagami**

On the bridge of the rapidly ascending patrol ship an eclectic group of girls and a single older man were getting the ship ready to fight or to be more accurate the man the red headed young looking girl and a girl with pigtailed blue hair was getting the ship ready. Two of the girls, one with aqua-white wild hair and the other deep purple, were very green in the face, while the dark skinned blonde was still crying her eyes out with the occasional cry of "My poor Tenchi!"

"I told you girls it was a bad idea to go after Tenchi," said the red head, also known as Washu, the greatest scientist in the whole universe, as she looked back at the green in the face Ryoko and Akane who were trying to forget their rather short misadventure in 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' dimension. They had the misfortune of landing right in the middle of a Vogon poetry session. "You were damned lucky that I was able to pull you out in time. Vogon poetry is quite lethal."

That did it for Akane as her hands went straight for her mouth and she dashed into the back to worship the porcelain chalice, which also set off Ryoko who grabbed her ever present sick bag and went off to the side of the bridge.

"You girls have such weak constitutions," Washu lamented as she did her magic with the patrol ship's shields.

"We are entering visual range of the doranian fleet," the AI of the Yagami announced, since Mihoshi was still very busy crying her eyes out, mainly because she was the one to cause Tenchi to disappear, Ryo-okhi to fall into a coma induced by Vogon poetry and accidentally locked away all of the weapons in Washu's lab that could have dealt with the doranians without destroying the rest of the system with them.

Ahead of them, through the forward viewport, the first group of three of the twelve doranian cruisers could be seen launching magnetically accelerated iron bullets from their spinal mounted dual rail guns. The Yagami's AI began to follow standard GP procedures and opened a channel to the lead doranian cruiser.

"This is the Galaxy Police patrol ship _Yagami_ to attacking Doranian Imperium warships. Your attack on the planet Earth is a violation of the Juraian Protected Planets Treaty. You are hereby ordered to stand down and prepared to be taken into custody!"

The doranian warships responded with a casual display of their firepower. A barrage of plasma canon fire and particle beams crossed the space between the two sides and impacted heavily upon the GP patrol ships shields. Their stress indicators almost went into the red and Washu hung her head in disappointment. "I can't believe I'm working with such limited technology. This bucket of bolts shield generators is way too out of date for me to do anything really useful with them."

The _Yagami's_ AI fired a few token shots from its forward ion canons then took evasive manoeuvres to avoid the majority of the incoming weapons fire, though a large portion still managed to get through and push the shields into the red, almost to collapse, which Ryoko blatantly ignores the warnings and angrily looks to the talking head interface of the _Yagami's_ AI as she noticed what it was doing.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing, why are you retreating?" she asked angrily.

"Do you take me for a fool? Those ships may be from a Quantum I level civilization, but I am just a patrol ship, not a true warship. I'm built to run down small time crooks, like smugglers and pirates, I am not built for all out war, and even if I were to engage them with everything I have I would only be able to take down one of them, possibly two, but by then I'd be a burning wreck," responded the AI nervously as it watched Ryoko get a murderous gleam in her eyes.

She was truly pissed off, not just at the doranians for attacking her adoptive home, but also frustrated with herself for accidentally putting Ryo-Okhi in a coma after landing in that truly horrifying recital of Vogon poetry.

"Alert, multiple small contacts incoming from the lunar horizon, and one large one. Activating rear cameras," the AI reported as images of missiles streaking from beyond the lunar horizon. Six large missiles and twelve smaller ones streaked by the patrol ship, then came the real surprise. A warship, ten times longer and which drastically out massed the _Yagami_, came speeding past and headed straight for the doranian cruisers, with, impossibly, three light hawk wings extended.

"It's Tenchi, he has returned!" Washu said both happily and surprised. "And my little guinea pig has brought home someone new. Oh the fun I will have, running all sorts of tests on both him and his new companions."

Ryoko ignored the mad ramblings of her mother and latched onto the first thing she said. _Tenchi has come home, and he brought home his own ship? I am so going to have to keep him away from the princess, he's mine. Mine I tell'ya!_

Through all this the _Yagami's_ AI could only continue reporting. "Missiles impacting in five seconds!"

* * *

AN: Phew, sorry for the long wait. Real life sucks sometimes, but I got this done and now I'm going to bed. Enjoy!


End file.
